What are some D&D products that used a 3rd-party's IP?

Urriak Uruk

Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone

• Feb 6, 2020

• #1

Hi y'all, I've noticed that part of Wizard's current strategy for bringing more new players into playing 5E is by doing tie-ins to other properties. There has been the Stranger Things boxed set, the Rick & Morty boxed set, the Acquisitions Inc book, and the upcoming Critical Role Wildemount book.

But this strategy isn't the first time D&D has made products from partnerships with other people's IP.

D&D has made modules for Conan the Barbarian:

And Diablo:

What other partnerships with IPs they don't own has Wizards done? And what IPs would you like to see them work with again? Personally, I'd love to see them return to Diablo, especially with Diablo 4 eventually coming...

 

log in or register to remove this ad

Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ

• Feb 6, 2020

• #2

Off the top of my head: There were the Cthulhu and Melibone mysthoi in the original Deities and Demigods. The Lankmar mythos in the 2e Legends and Lore. Rokugan in 3e's OA. I believe there were some Red Sonja modules.

 

tommybahama

Adventurer

• Feb 6, 2020

• #3

Did they ever do anything piratey when Pirates of the Caribbean was at its peak in popularity?

 

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens

Supporter

• Feb 6, 2020

• #4

The Shattered Statue had both D&D and Dragon Quest rules in it. There was one Red Sonja module, Red Sonja Unconquered.

 

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens

Supporter

• Feb 6, 2020

• #5

Oh, the first ever standalone D&D module, Palace of the Vampire Queen (1976), was actually published by a company called Wee Warriors and only distributed by TSR. Not sure if that counts or not. The same company also published the first set of character sheets, under the title The Character Archaic, and which was also distributed by TSR.

 

P

Panda-s1

Scruffy and Determined

• Feb 6, 2020

• #6

before people got to whine at the mere thought of 4e there was this book in 2003:

there was also a game specific to World of Warcraft 2 years later, but that one was published under the Sword & Sorcery label so it doesn't really count.

 

S

Shiroiken

Legend

• Feb 6, 2020

• #7

Azzy said:

Off the top of my head: There were the Cthulhu and Melibone mysthoi in the original Deities and Demigods. The Lankmar mythos in the 2e Legends and Lore. Rokugan in 3e's OA. I believe there were some Red Sonja modules.

Click to expand...

The inclusion of Cthulhu turned out problematic for TSR, for while it was a natural inclusion for D&D, apparently it had already been licensed out. Kind of a shame, because I think it would have made for a better horror themed setting than Ravenloft did. I wish that Lankmar would have continued, and never really found out why that setting died off.

Oh, and as much as I love Rokugan, technically it was WotC IP when it was the OA in 3E. This was during the timeframe that WotC bought it from AEG, before they sold it back to them years later (I think AEG went through a bankruptcy or something to restructure). This was a good thing IMO, because the 3E system doesn't provide the nuance necessary to run such a setting properly, where social interaction is more important than combat. I think that 5E could do it better (mostly due to bounded accuracy), but it would still have difficulty in conversion (shugenja for example, would probably have to be its own class as none of the spellcasting classes really work).

 

Morrus

Well, that was fun

Staff member

• Feb 6, 2020

• #8

WotC produced d20 Call of Cthulhu, and Star Wars.

 

The Mirrorball Man

Aventurier

• Feb 6, 2020

• #9

What about "Temple of the Frog"? Did Dave Arneson keep his Blackmoor IP rights?

 

JeffB

Legend

• Feb 6, 2020

• #10

Empire of the Petal Throne

They had a Lhankmar and Barsoom and Middle Earth Wargame (the latter two quickly removed)

They produced some boardgames that were not their own designs (Tim Kask goes into detail about these in various vids- I cannot recall names at the moment- some were Australian, IIRC)

SPI stuff they had rights to. Dragonquest, etc. because they bought SPI. This is where the Ares section in the Dragon came from Ares was SPI's magazine.

Indiana Jones
Marvel
Dallas

Some of these were obviously not D&D based, but nether was the Conan game module pictured (that was Zeb Cook's system- which came after the AD&D Conan modules)